Tag: #technology #life #middle-age #biography

Supposing we don’t destroy the planet before hand and I have some serious doubts about this given over 75% of adults aren’t modifying their behaviour at all despite being the first generation to be aware of our detrimental impact on the place. I’ve been thinking about advances in technology.

When I was growing up in the UK in the 70’s and 80’s we had a black and white television about the size of the average iPad (other tablets are available) with 3 channels, you tuned it in like an old fashioned radio by twisting a knob, it had an ariel like a wire coat hanger, indeed you could use one if the original was missing. I still remember the excitement when the neighbours from no 24 (we were at 7) bought a colour tv. It was a brown wood effect box with press buttons that could be pre-set to store the channels.

Music was played on 12 or 7 inch records or on tapes. We’d record the top 40 hoping to omit the voice of the dj over our favourite tracks. And if we failed to find a new one when it was time to record carefully placed celotape over the tabs in the top of a pre-recorded album we’d had enough of.

Then came video so you could record television too! Betamax was beaten to the punch by VHS. Video cameras became a thing, almost immediately tv programmes like ‘you’ve been framed’ or other shows that caught ‘hilarious’ situations on camera arrived. Seriously undermining society in my opinion but I digress..

We still accessed books for knowledge not Google and turned pages, there’s nothing like smell and sound of the crisp paper of a new book or the soft touch of a well thumbed favourite read. Now I admit I myself read more articles on screen than newspapers.

At school there was 1 computer, up stairs by the dormitories, we never used it for lessons. Really it was the property of the sixth form boarders, who learned various algorithms to scroll the names of their latest crush all over the banks of computer screens in Oxford city centre at the weekends.

Just think of the advancements made since then! By the time I was working in a solicitors in 1993 Word Perfect (blue screen, word processing) was making way for Word for Windows, (I don’t pretend to know anything at all about Apple Mac.) A mouse had stopped being something you caught in traps for eating corn stores or infiltrating your larder cupboard and was something entirely different. Computers went from being complex with F keys and binary code needed for even the simplest of tasks and were now becoming more accessible. People were sending documents via fax machine rather than the need to wait for the post, DX or telegram. The world was moving faster than ever.

I stated this blog to begin with because I love to write but with no idea what kind of blogger I’d be (still fairly unclear tbh!) what I’d post about or how it would evolve but primarily to document my year. (I have a New Years Eve birthday and benefit from being 47 all year with no frayed edges of days or months) and in the event of my demise so my children could get a snap shot of who I am and have been as a person. This was important to me. My father died when I was 6 after a short battle with a brain tumour. I know very little of who he was. His siblings were a good deal older, my cousins a similar age to him but they weren’t close to my knowledge and although she tried hard until their deaths or she moved to Pembrokeshire whichever came sooner my Mother couldn’t force us to have a relationship with people with which we felt no connection. There’s no-one else to ask about him except my mother and to get a rounded idea of a person I feel it’s necessary to get various view points for a clear picture. I feel I missed out in some way, a father’s unique love and perception of his daughter and all that jazz and to know if I am like him, would our out look have been the same and so on. This blog is a little bit of who I am. Daizy my youngest is only 4, Lewis 6, Jenson 9, Emily 15, Ellie 17 and Ce’Nedra 27. I love you kids, you are the best of me, just in case you’re reading this after the event!

If we manage to carry on long enough without destroying the planet I imagine there will come a time when we can translate peoples thought waves. We’re already able to get microchip implants for identity etc. (I kid you not!) Will there be a time when you can upload all your thoughts, as simply as your spotify playlist. Will we be able to upload our memories, the essence of who we are on to a chip. Like an autobiography on a very personal level. Will there come a time when we can upload another person in our mind and truely know them? Perhaps, but until then my children will have to make to with my blog.